Clear and to the point

From the revised guidelines on women seeking induced abortion, by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (United Kingdom), made public today:

6.7 Feticide

RECOMMENDATION 6.21

Feticide should be performed before medical abortion after 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation to ensure that there is no risk of a live birth.

Evidence supporting recommendation 6.21

Inducing fetal death before medical abortion may have beneficial emotional, ethical and legal consequences.

The RCOG guidance on termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormality (published in 2010) clearly explains the legal situation around late-stage abortions (see Chapter 2). Where a decision to abort a pregnancy after 21 weeks and 6 days is taken, feticide should be routinely offered. In abortions where the fetal abnormality is not compatible with life, abortion without feticide may be preferred. However, in cases where the fetal abnormality is not lethal or the abortion is not for fetal abnormality and is being undertaken after 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation, failure to perform feticide could result in a live birth and survival, which contradicts the intention of the abortion. Regarding fetal pain and awareness, the RCOG has published guidance and concluded that ‘In reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the fetus, it was apparent that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of gestation and, as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception, it can be concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation.’

Very few abortions on grounds C or D are undertaken at late gestations. Only 9% of abortions occur after 13 weeks and only 1.5% occur after 20 weeks of gestation. In Great Britain, those few are, for the most part, undertaken within the specialist independent sector. When the method of abortion chosen by a specialist practitioner is surgical (D&E), the nature of the procedure ensures that there is no risk of a live birth, although in one study 91% of women indicated a preference that the fetus was dead. When medical abortion is chosen, special steps are required to ensure that the fetus is dead at the time of abortion. The RCOG recommends feticide for abortions over 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation, except in the case of lethal fetal abnormality, and that feticide should always be performed by an appropriately trained practitioner (under consultant supervision) using aseptic conditions and with continuous ultrasound.

The RCOG recommends intracardiac potassium chloride (KCl) 2–3 ml strong (15%) injection into a cardiac ventricle. A repeat injection may be required if asystole has not occurred after 30–60 seconds. Asystole should be observed for at least 2 minutes and fetal demise should be confirmed by ultrasound scan after 30–60 minutes.

Fetal demise may also be induced by intra-amniotic or intrathoracic injection of digoxin (up to 1 mg) and by umbilical venous or intracardiac injection of 1% lidocaine (up to 30 ml); however, neither procedure consistently induces fetal demise.

A dose of digoxin 1 mg given either intra-amniotically or intrafetally will cause fetal death in 87% of cases; the latter method is much more rapid. A dose of digoxin 1.5 mg given intra-amniotically caused death within 20 hours (in most cases there was still fetal cardiac activity at 4 hours). In a large retrospective review, Molaei et al. (2008) concluded that the overall failure rate with digoxin was 7%, although there were no failures with an intrafetal dose of 1 mg. Importantly, in this review there were no adverse effects at any of the doses used.

Intracardiac injection of either KCl or intrathoracic injection of digoxin requires considerably more skill than intra-amniotic injection of digoxin. While the latter may be slightly less effective in inducing fetal demise, its use may be an option for services that lack personnel with sufficient skill in administering intracardiac injections.

25 comments:

MKT
said...

Pope Sixtus V - Constitution Effrænatam - 29 October 1588:

"the barbarity ... of those who do not shrink from the most cruel slaughter of fetuses still coming to maturity in the shelter of their mothers' wombs (... eorum immanitatem ... qui immaturos foetus intra materna viscera adhuc latentes crudelissime necare non verentur ...)For who would not detest a crime as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God's image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature. (...Quis enim non detestetur, tam execrandum facinus, per quod nedum corporum, sed quod gravius est, etiam animarum certa iactura sequitur? Quis non gravissimis suppliciis damnet illius impietatem, qui animam Dei imagine insignitam, pro qua redimenda Christus Dominus noster preciosum Sanguinem fudit, aeternae capacem Beatitudinis, et ad consortium Angelorum destinatam, a beata Dei visione exclusit, reparationem coelestium sedium quantum in ipso fuit, impedivit, Deo servitium suae creaturae ademit?)"

[Latin text of this Constitution can be found in P. Gasparri (ed.), Codex Iuris Canonici Fontes, vol. I, p. 308.]

Intracardiac injection of either KCl or intrathoracic injection of digoxin requires considerably more skill than intra-amniotic injection of digoxin. While the latter may be slightly less effective in inducing fetal demise, its use may be an option for services that lack personnel with sufficient skill in administering intracardiac injections.

These people are the moral equivalent of the Nazi doctors who experimented on Jews.

Sorry to hog the comments, but this story is making me tremble with fury.

As for the RCOG's specious assertion that the fetus does not feel physical pain, we need only call to mind the words of Fr. von Cochem:

In one of his epistles to St. Augustine, St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, relates what was told him by a man who had been raised from the dead. Amongst other things, he said: "The moment when my soul left my body, was one of such awful pain and distress that no one can imagine the anguish I then endured. If all conceivable suffering and pain were put together they would be as nothing in comparison with the torture I underwent at the separation of soul and body."

That man can conceive of such horrific evil and call it medical science is beyond comprehension. The Scripture saith: 2Ti 3:1 Know also this, that in the last days shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,

When I did volunteer work for Right to Life, a young couple who were considering an abortion came to me for help (in which I was in a position to help in a unique way). After the baby was born the dad came to my house, with tears in his eyes, and thanked me for the life of his baby. They baptized the baby. Next to having my own children (almost half a dozen at this point!) that was definitely a highlight in my life!

With this Britain has abandoned all hypocrisy and given itself over to the evil one. These professionals are depraved - presenting such horrors as if they are "normal" medical procedures. I did not have the stomach to read it all...for it is all hellish. How any human being can even TYPE UP such without experiencing revulsion and outrage is utterly beyond my comprehension. A country that allows such documents to exist legally is on edge of the abyss. May God have mercy on them

"Immediately are heard voices and great wailing, the weeping souls of infants on the very threshold of the sweet life they would never know and ripped from the breast, those whom a black day had carried off and plunged in bitter death."

So wrote Vergil as Aeneas passed through the entrance to the underworld.

The fruits of 'protestantism' and its terrible ancestor the french revolution and its terrible creation of fascism all culminating in our 'liberal' societies of today. I have to smile and pray constantly because what awaits some of these butchers is beyond the description of 'hell, knashing with teeth' and of 'hellfire and brimstone.' For those whoever seek to save these souls and the defenseless shall their rewards be mighty and broad indeed for such is the benevolence and love Our LORD showed when he defeated death upon the Cross.

in cases where the fetal abnormality is not lethal or the abortion is not for fetal abnormality and is being undertaken after 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation, failure to perform feticide could result in a live birth and survival, which contradicts the intention of the abortion.

This language should be sufficient for any court to rule that the procedure is equivalent to murder and should be illegal.

How can it be that at least half of the Catholics in the U.S. voted to elect a man who would fight to keep such "procedures" legal?

The once "Great Britain" at one time, famous for its civility in many things, is now unquestionably the "epicentre of the culture of death" (I picked up that term from the net somewhere). Like David,I am greatly disturbed by this and cannot understand why there isn't more of an uproar of protest from the British themselves. It's unspeakably horrid. How could protest be conducted, anyway, I've no idea.

God help us all for only He can do it. We have gone too far - we cannot get out of this Brave New World (the horror for sure "is upon us" as Huxley himself said in a second edition of the book) without God's intervention. I know barbaric actions against life are carried out in other countries too, but with the publication of this document we have arrived at an unthinkable level - the slaughtering of babies has the benediction by the once distinguished Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (United Kingdom). Some hypocrisy implies a little conscience, what has happened to the British?

A remarkable confession. I can assure you that intracardiac injection of 15% Potassiun chloride requires much expertise. It certainly could not be achieved in the Acorn/Planned parenthood Eugenic minority mills we have in the USA. Inthrathoracic injection of Digoxin would a bit easier with good sonograms but Digoxin goes into the amniotic fluid it will go straight into the matermal circulation and could stop both hearts. In the USA one could not do this without great liability in case you off the mother too. That must be why sucking off the brains out is the American Way.

Once I attended a Medical Genetics retreat. As they were discussing terminations, I naively asked until when they could be performed. There was a pause, with people giggling and knowingly smiling at each other until someone answer: birthdate minus one day. That day I understood we had come a long way, baby.

Faced with this abomination, one can only recall the words of the late, great, Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, addressing the Sons of Thunder before the first "rescue", in 1970, at GWU: "America-land of the scraped womb. You are about to abort your future because you are daggering to death your unborn tomorrow." Substitute Britain for Amnerica, same, same as we used to say back in the day, in the late republic (the RVN). One can read about Prof. Wilhelmsen's work on that day in the Best of Triumph collection, from the olf Triumph magazine.

What do you make of the approval of feticidal techniques that no one in his right mind would use, given their difficulty and danger to the mother? Is the point the introduction of the recommendation of feticide, with the (ahem) safer brain-sucking technique likely to be introduced in the next revision of the guidelines, or the one after that?

Evil sacrifice! Do you suppose that they have gotten away with something? Do you doubt that God sees this? Imagine what "other horrors" await such creatures as these! Suppose the souls of the long ago damned were permitted to possess the bodies of the dead and seek vengence on the living? Or if the Earth vomited up entire civilizations in an instant? Perhaps you'll go to bed in the computer age and in the morning awaken in the New Stone Age. The cosmos are all at God's command.